


here comes the jackpot question in advance

by buckgaybarnes



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Long-Distance Relationship, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, New Year's Eve, Passionate and Fascinating Exchange of Letters, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 05:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17155964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckgaybarnes/pseuds/buckgaybarnes
Summary: 2017 is a whole new year.





	here comes the jackpot question in advance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [businesscasual_pseudopod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/businesscasual_pseudopod/gifts).



> merry christmas will!!! i'm your newmann secret santa!!! your art is SO fantastic and you're so cool and i admit i was a little nervous about writing you something so i decided a little dumb new year's fluff might be fun. (sorry it wasn't longer, i'm much better with ficlets/shorter fics.) i hope you like it!! and happy holidays to the rest of you too :)

Hermann wakes to the sound of his phone vibrating furiously on his bedside table.

Morning alarm, he thinks first, before he realizes that it's pitch-black out beyond his window and his ringtone is thrown into the mix so it must be a phone call. He rolls over and squints groggily at his alarm clock: it’s quarter to five. Immediately, he panics. Why would someone be calling him this early, and on a holiday at that? Has something happened to his parents? One of his siblings? Has there been another kaiju attack? God forbid—has something happened to  _Newton_? Hermann doesn’t even look at the caller ID before he snatches up his phone, unlocks it, and half-shouts “What?!”

“ _Hermaaaaann_!” Newton shouts happily in response, and Hermann deflates. Not an emergency after all, then—just another occasion of Newton obviously forgetting how time zones work. “ _How’s it going, man?_ ”

The room Newton’s in is so noisy Hermann can barely hear him—loud pop music, dozens of other voices (laughing and talking and shouting), what sounds like party blowers—so noisy that Hermann pulls the phone away from his ear for a moment to wince. (Too early for this, _far_ too early.) Of course, Hermann thinks, he should’ve expected it. It’s still New Year’s Eve where Newton is. Still before midnight. Newton’s been talking about a New Years party he’d been invited to for months now, so Hermann reckons that’s what he’s hearing in the background.

That does not explain why Newton is calling him instead of enjoying the party.

“Is there something you need?” Hermann says. He sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed carefully, and winces again for an entirely different reason. Hermann is not the _partying_ type, nor is he really the drinking type, but he did enjoy a fair bit of a nice wine Newton sent him for Hanukkah (alongside an equally nice edition of a book he wanted) as he watched the countdown to midnight on Channel Four alone on his couch, and he feels it keenly now.

“ _Can’t I just call my best, uh, bud on—shit_ —” He hears Newton apologize to someone on his end with a loud laugh. “ _Gimme a sec, Hermann.”_ Newton’s gone for a few moments, and then it’s significantly calmer, music and voices muffled. “ _There. Way quieter out on the balcony.”_ He adjusts his phone. _“Anyway. Howdy. Hiya. What's shaking. How's the future?_ ”

“Newton,” Hermann says, smile creeping up on his face in spite of himself. He shouldn’t be smiling. He should be furious with Newton for waking him up at such an ungodly hour, seemingly to do nothing but...smalltalk him. But Newton is—well— “You’re pissed, aren’t you?”

“ _So drunk right now, dude, you have no fucking clue,_ ” Newton giggles. “ _I only had three glasses of champagne. Fucking lightweight. It’s so embarrassing. My freshmen could outdrink me_.” Then he swears and giggles harder. “ _I keep_ tripping _everywhere._ ”

Hermann drags a hand down his face, but he does not lose his smile. “I can’t imagine why. How’s your party?”

Newton hums, noncommittally. “ _It’s alright_ ,” he says. “ _Not the worst. Not the best_.”

Hermann’s smile does fade now. “I’m sorry. Are you not having fun?” It’d be a shame if that were the case. Newton loves parties, and he’d been so excited for this one (Newton never gets invited places, _ever_ —he’s significantly younger and significantly less married-with-children than most of his colleagues at MIT, and he doesn’t exactly have many friends).

“ _I know, like, two people here,_ ” Newton says. “ _No one I’d want to kiss at midnight._ ” Newton lets out a huff of breath, half-annoyed, half-embarrassed, and Hermann realizes he’s holding his. (Who does Newton want to kiss at midnight?) “ _Jesus, it’s fucking freezing out. I should’ve grabbed my coat_.”

“You’re not wearing a coat?” Hermann says, and tsks. “Newton—”

“ _I’m fine_ ,” Newton says. “ _Really. It’s just some wind and snow flurries. Chill._ ” He takes a few more shaky breaths (shivering, probably, he really should take better care of himself), and then says, “ _Uh. What was I talking about?_ ”

“Kissing,” Hermann says, then quickly clarifies, “er. At midnight, that is. You were upset because—well.” Hermann spares another glance at his alarm clock. Seven minutes to midnight where Newton is; Hermann wonders, for a second time, why Newton’s called him. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to the the party? I know New York does that—great bloody ball drop in Times Square, on the television. You’ll miss it.”

“ _2017!_ ” Newton says instead of answering him, apropos of nothing. “ _We’ve known each other for almost four years. Isn’t that cool, Hermann?_ ” He’s started slurring his words a bit more, and Hermann hears him swallow something down. Is he having another drink? Does he have a ride home? What if he’s too close to the edge of the balcony and too drunk to catch himself should he trip and start to fall? _Chill_ , Newton said.

“Three and a half is hardly four,” Hermann says, though he’s secretly fond of the idea of knowing Newton for four whole years too. “It’s not even three and a half. It’s more like—”

“ _‘S basically four,_ ” Newton says dismissively. “ _Anyway, did you like the wine? I wanted to get you cool socks with rocket ships on them or something, but wine seemed more mature. And more, like, romantic.”_ Hermann nearly drops his phone, even as Newton continues to babble on. _Romantic_? What is he on about? “ _I Googled brands for like, five hours. I actually hate wine, you know? I drank half a box on my own one time when I was fifteen or something and I ended up puking_ —”

“I would’ve liked socks,” Hermann interjects weakly. “Though the wine and book were lovely. Newton. Did you say 'more romantic'?”

“ _Yeah. What I mean is—improvisation. Adapting to circumstances, and shit. I can’t really wine and dine you the way I want to_ ,” Newton says, and then Hermann hears him take another drink of something. His heart is nearly racing out of his chest. Newton talks, and he talks a lot, about anything and everything, but he's never been so candid about these sort of matters. “ _Oh, shit! Three minutes!_ ” 4:57, Hermann’s clock says in blinking green. Newton lowers his voice. “ _Did_ you _kiss anyone at midnight? Some hunky boyfriend you haven’t told me about?_ ”

Hermann laughs derisively. No, he didn’t kiss anyone at midnight. He thinks he texted Newton something— _happy 2017_ , maybe just a few confetti emoticons—but Newton’s party had well-begun by that point and he didn’t respond, and Hermann'd dragged himself to bed and was asleep by ten after. “No,” Hermann says. “I didn’t kiss anyone.”

“ _Good. I’d be jealous_.”

Hermann’s cheeks grow warm. Is Newton teasing him? Newton doesn’t seem the sort to tease about things like this. Besides. It’s not _entirely_ out of left field. Their letters and emails and texts have long since crossed the boundary between what is considered professional between colleagues or acceptable between friends and into...new, stranger territory. Flirtatious territory, Hermann might say. (Newton certainly texts him enough shirtless selfies, even if it's merely to show him his 'tattoo progress'.) “Really,” Hermann says, drawing his cardigan tight around himself, “why have you called?”

Newton’s quiet for a few seconds. 4:58. “ _This is corny as shit_ ,” Newton says, “ _but I really wish—I wanna kiss you at midnight, you know? I really want to. I thought if I called it might—sorry, this is dumb, I’ll just—_ ”

“Newton,” Hermann says quickly. “It’s not dumb. You’re…” He’s not sure whether to smile or sigh. Of course he wants to kiss Newton, too. Of course he’s no less than ecstatic at Newton’s confession. But Newton’s completely inebriated, completely out of his right mind. He’ll have forgotten all of this by tomorrow morning. And even if he doesn’t—what does this accomplish? There’s still an ocean and thousands of miles between them. They have obligations. Jobs. Endless research. Monsters rising from the sea to deal with. They can’t exactly put it all on hold to... _run away_ together (as much as Hermann may want to, as much as he may lay awake at night and imagine the possibility).

Still: it’s New Year’s. 2017 is a whole new year, a whole new twelve months, of possibilities. Maybe he _will_ kiss Newton. Maybe they will say fuck it all to everything and run away together. Maybe they’ll finally meet, like Newton keeps hinting at wanting to.

Hermann allows himself the smile. “I’d like to kiss you, too,” he confesses.

Newton laughs in delight. “ _Hey, c_ _ool!_ ” he slurs. “ _Hermann. You know, I really—you really—you mean—_ ”

“I know,” Hermann says. He brushes his thumb along his phone, as if Newton could somehow feel the gentle touch. “I feel the same.”

There’s a quiet pause, but it’s pleasant, warm. He wonders if Newton’s also smiling.

“ _Thirty seconds_ ,” Newton says.

Months and months ago, Newton sent Hermann a Polaroid of himself (messy hair, cheeky grin with his tongue poking out between his teeth, crooked and smudged glasses), and Hermann—in a moment of overwhelming sentimentality—tucked it into a little frame and propped it up on his bedside table. He fixes his eyes on it now as Newton counts down from ten in his ear. How easy it would be, if Newton were in front of him, to grab him by the front of his shirt, to pull him in, to muss up that hair further as he kisses him soundly.

“ _Zero!_ ” Newton exclaims (5:00), and, heavily muffled in the background, there are loud cheers, party blowers, pops. Hermann shuts his eyes and imagines Newton’s cheeky grin, how his hands might feel cupping Hermann’s cheeks, how he’d knock his forehead against Hermann’s and laugh as Hermann blushed ( _chill_ , he’d say, _it’s just a little kiss, Hermann, that’s all_ ), how he’d press their lips together and taste—not unpleasantly—of champagne. “ _Happy 2017, Hermann_ ,” Newton says, quiet, and Hermann blinks from the fantasy to his darkened bedroom and Newton’s Polaroid with a palpable, aching _want_ deep in his chest.

“Happy 2017,” Hermann says.

A whole year of possibilities.

**Author's Note:**

> hermannsthumb for tumblr and hermanngaylieb for twitter like usual!


End file.
